LITTELL'S LIVING AGE-No. 580.-7 JULY, 1855.

THE BIRTHDAY DRAWING ROOM. To the Editor of the Times:

!passage, with a low ceiling, and at the end of a closely-packed and murmuring assemblage of persons, apparently well dressed, no doubt, and with plenty of pretty faces and highly-decorated heads, but so jammed together, so hot (yet liable to rheumatic draughts of air), so fearful of their neighbors, with such an expression of almost ludicrous anxiety upon their countenances as to what might befall the next, that it was evident they had already entered upon a career of

SIR-You inserted, after the last levee, one or two letters, expressive of the sufferings to which the male victims of loyalty were exposed upon that occasion. I trust that you have sufficient gallantry and humanity in your disposition not to refuse a place to a similar cry of distress from a lady, who has endured still more cruel disappointment and disasters in her endeavors to display her devotion to her beloved considerable difficulty and danger. As there is Sovereign at the Drawing Room, for which ob- a clock against the wall at the further end of ject I came up on purpose from my place in the this first division of narrow passages, and as I country. In order to make you more fully ap- am rather taller than some of my fellow-sufferpreciate my feelings under the scene which I ers, I was able to perceive that it took about shall describe, I must first give you a brief sketch three-quarters of an hour of short, fitful, pushing of those with which I first approached the build- movement, to arrive at the said end-when a ing which bears the well-sounding and storied turn round a sharp corner, where several little name of St. James' Palace. My ideas of a skirmishing casualities occurred, brought up the Court, taken, I must confess, rather from books tightly-wedged column in another shorter fragand description, than from experience - were ment of the passage, whence another abrupt rather imaginative. I had in my head a kind of and still more perilous corner brought us to the gorgeous Paul Veronese picture of magnificent-foot of the stairs, which we had to surmount. ly dressed persons, moving with measured step, Even by this time, I had a considerable foretaste a stately demeanor, and a courteous and digni- of pain and danger, from the sword hilts, spurs, fied decorum through lofty halls, occasionally and rough clothes of the gentlemen, tramplings pausing with a pleased but somewhat solemn upon my feet, etc., but endured quite as much, I aspect, to hold short and interesting conversa- am bound to say, from the elbows, wrigglings, and tions in picturesque groups, admiring the splen- recklessness resolution to be first of my own sex. dors of the place, and commenting upon the At this point several of the weaker candidates afbeautiful objects collected there, till at last, on ter various attempts to get their smelling-bottles arriving, gradually and at leisure, in the presence to their noses, and vain appeals for a consideration of their Sovereign, they found her on a slightly which there were no means of showing, gave raised dais, with her princely Consort, immedi- in, and slipping out at the side, or where they ately surrounded by the Princess and Princess- could, appeared in full retreat, a proceeding es of her family and connections, supported on which, by the by, materially enhanced the grieveach side, in a gradually descending series from ances of the advancing column. the steps of her throne, by all her great Minis- "pains and penalties" continued, of course in an ters and officers and ladies of State, briefly con- augmented proportion all the way up stairs. versing with those who presented themselves A succession of jammings, crushes, and lateral in the somewhat formal circle, who, slowly pass- pressures, at guarded doors, and across halberds, ing by, after brief words of courtesy from such through which masses of the "company" are of the illustrious group as chose so to distin- driven pell-mell, a score or two at a time (as guish them, dispersed themselves through apart- they do sheep in and out of a fold, when about ments replete with every elegance and comfort, to shear them), bore us at length triumphantly, to converse together, admire one another's though with diminished strength and clothes, dresses, and otherwise amuse themselves, till it into the narrow, roped-off avenue, significantly suited them to call for their carriages, and go termed "the Pen." By the time this goal was home. My only apprehension was, lest a some- reached considerable losses had been sustained what awful formality and ceremonious reception in equipments; and few continued to wear that might be rather alarming to one unaccustomed fresh, smart, serene appearance with which they to solemn pageants and Royal conversation. Of had smilingly left their homes. Here, however, most of these illusions my mind was speedily as only a certain number are admitted at a time divested. Upon first leaving my carriage, I was and as it is the proximate approach to the surprised to find myself, instead of entering the Royal presence-a comparative calm prevails; spacious hall which I had anticipated, ushered, by it being absolutely necessary to readjust one's a smallish kind of backdoor, into a long, narrow costume and compose one's nerve's so as to pass

The same

1

DLXXX. LIVING AGE.

VOL X. 1

at least decently before the Royal line, which, The fair VERBENA, beautifully drest,

to my dismay, I found, instead of forming the grand spectacle I had anticipated, stationed immediately after the last door, with a very confined passage between lords and grooms in waiting left in front for the approach of the visitors. I had been thinking how I should best compose my attitude while detained in the presence of Majesty; but small leisure was now left for such solicitudes. "Pass on, Madam: pass on". in a low solemn voice, not the less impressive for being delivered in the suppressed tone of halfarticulate awe befitting the place and occasionwere the only words which fell on my ear as I was hurried past. I had been known to some of the Royal persons, foreigners and others, who were standing there, and they graciously began some sentences to me; but the inexorable "Pass on, Madam; pass on," again impelled me forward, and I was hastened beyond the| power of hearing before they had concluded them. The same stream continued through the gallery beyond as had arrived by the staircase, but undoubtedly with less pressure, until we once more found ourselves in the narrow passage by which we had entered, for, among other ingenious contrivances to produce difficulty and inconvenience is this, that the route of exit and entrance is the same, and here, accordingly, ensues a scene which baffles description-people dying to make their escape after hours of fatigue and exhaustion, instead of being dispersed in a large enclosed space, with plenty of sofas and seats of all kinds, jammed up at one end of the same JUVENILE CRIME IN LIVERPOOL.-In the year long passage while their carriage is being an1854 the criminal statistics of Liverpool showed nounced at the other; with only one means of that 1035 children were committed for felony; egress; pressing and crushing through the the value of property known to be stolen by throng in a despairing agony at being fore- these juvenile offenders was computed at 85401., ibly detained in a place worthy the pen and of which 13671. only was ever recovered. The pencil of Dante. For myself, I finally arriv-average number of commitments was 1000 per ed at home almost with shame and humili- annum; of these 28 per cent, only could neithation at the mode in which I had passed the last er read nor write-a fearful state of things to four hours, and entirely disabused of all the contemplate, that nearly three-fourths of these ideas I had formed of the beauty, dignity, and children had received some sort of education. courtesy of a Court. Sir, this scene is, I assure Upon the questions of punishment of the crime you, understated. What may be the fit remeand reformation of the offender, a great diversity dy for this state of things I leave to be deter- of opinion prevails, the subject being beset with mined by wiser heads than that placed (and, tion has yet to be solved. difficulties. The problem of criminal reformawonderful to say, still remaining) upon the shoulders of the sensitive and crushed.

VERBENA.

THE ORDER OF THE HOT AIR BATH.
TO THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN.

WHAT noble lord or lady being heir,

Or heiress, both of property and brains, Would barter for St. James' heated air

The vernal breezes of their own domains?

Aristocratic noses are allowed

The finest in this world of ours to be.
Can they prefer a close, though courtly, crowd
To clover-bloom, and Zeypher breathing free?

Some hours was hustled in a crowd like that

At the last Drawing Room, and so compressed,
She passed before her SOVEREIGN nearly flat.

Her dress, of satin, silk, and moire antique,

And tulle, was rumpled, crumpled, rent and torn, And she looked quite a figure, so to speak,

Of feathers, wreaths, festoons, and flounces shorn.

Through a long passage, striving, steaming, soak-
ed,

Now by ill-managed rapiers being poked,
To fight by tedious inches it was hers,

Now being scratched by clumsily worn spurs.

She blessed Court trains, of splendid matrons well
Of those "potatoes" who refuse to tell
Devised excessive ancles to conceal;
Dug out of silken hose by rowelled heal.

POLONIUS! thou that, with thy white and long
Stick, dost o'er courtly sacred rites preside,

Canst thou do nought to thin this recking throng,

Wherein noblest

Go, now to FARADAY; bid him declare

If limewater will be made chalky less,
By the carbonic acid in the air,

Exhaled by Beauty and High-Mightiness.

You

And in a narrow space if, cheek by jowl,
pen folks up, the same result there comes
Not equally in hot Calcutta's hole,
St. James' Palace, or St. Giles' slums!

Punch, June 2.

THE NEWSPAPER POSTAL SERVICE.-The number of newspapers which passed through the London office alone in 1854 exceeded 53, |000,000, being an increase of about 12 1-2 per cent. on the number in 1853. The average weight of a newspaper is about three ounces and a half. No record is kept of the whole number of newspapers circulated by the post. The number of book packets which passed through the London office last year was about 375,000, the average weight being ten ounces.-First Report on the Post Office.